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Comment by nickdandakis | Hacker News Reader

Okay, so. Have we reached diminishing returns with smartphones? Because it really feels that way.

I'm sure this new Pixel is better than the previous one, but we're starting to have conversations around _not_ buying the $1k phone for its camera, and instead buying two devices for $500 each that are better.

I personally feel like even four iPhone generations ago, the iPhone was "good enough" and that the software is really what needs to be improved.

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The market is basically in a holding pattern. New features tend to be situational and the performance improvements are pretty modest year-over-year. What's more, even old phones are fast enough for most uses, so even when the new one is 50% faster that's not a huge deal. It's hard to justify $800 to make a webpage load in .75 seconds instead of 1 second.

I'm still using my iPhone 6 and iOS 10 (I have some 32 bit apps that I still use). I'm considering swapping the battery instead of buying a new phone. Right now I would only upgrade if I severely broke it.

In some ways it would be a downgrade, because I use the headphone jack to wire it into my car's audio when doing navigation, and plug it into the cig lighter because navigation is a battery hog. It's pretty clear that Apple has no intention of ever bringing back the headphone jack.

Maybe I could find a bluetooth adapter on a headphone jack? I wonder if it could draw enough power from the headphone jack to not need a battery? Probably not.

I upgraded from iPhone 6 to iPhone XS and if I am 100% honest I don't feel a massive difference. New screen is really nice and I am surprised that I actually like face id much more than the fingerprint scanner. But on a day-to-day activity scale ... browsing facebook, reddit, youtube, playing games, etc. ... I often struggle to notice any real difference, even in how quick apps start. I don't regret it because I know I won't have to worry about upgrades for another 2-3 years.

But I can highly recommend the battery replacement for the iPhone 6. I was luck (unlucky?) enough to get the discounted battery replacement due to mine failing. After I got that it was a significant improvement.

IMO, FaceId is a game changer. I have an X, and rarely notice the phone unlocking. It's just working when I swipe up. Using the finger print to unlock feels old.

I have a 6s+ that I traded the battery and rear camera out at an Apple Store for less than $100 total. My rear camera was very shaky and would never focus on images so they came out blurry. I think it's totally worth a battery replacement and using your hardware as long as you can. My battery life is way better now and I'm back to going days(!) without charging.

The issue with that plan is that, with iOS 12 being released, lots of developers are going to start dropping support for iOS 10.

I don't download a ton of apps these days, but this could be an issue. Especially if it's a client/server thing and the server side is updated to not support the older clients.

I have not done a jailbreak in years, but I wonder if they have a 32bit compatibility package now? That would make it worth the hassle. Plus, jailbreaks are much less of a headache once your phone is out of support.

I personally wish folks would make phone upgrade decisions with battery replacements in mind. (I am guilty of this too, of course!)

If you're happy with your phone two years on, you probably get much more bang for your buck paying $79 for a new battery than $749 or $999 or whatever for a new device.

Especially with Apple's current $29 for all recent models. Take an iPhone SE, 2016 price $400, now sells around... $100 on eBay, so that's let's say a rough $150 for an ok phone with a fresh battery. It will probably last another, what, year or two? You can browse the web with it, and install apps. I use one every day and let me tell you: it's fine. It works, it's not frustrating.

Are these new phones really $1000/$150 ≈ 6 times better?

If you're a VC or early Google employee: sure, by all means. But $1000 for a phone when $150 will do; I find it hard to stomach.

Yeah the iPhone 6S with its much improved SSD and CPU/SoC was really a game changer. With a new battery and iOS 12 I’m still really happy with mine.

Just brought in my 6s for the $29 battery replacement. Hanging on to this thing as long as I can.

I agree. I don't want a new phone right now, I just want to keep getting software improvements. I still have the OG Pixel and I really don't want to replace it. It has a headphone jack and it still runs as well as it did day 1. Unfortunately google will probably stop supporting it soon forcing me to get a new pixel to keep getting software updates.

Same here. OG pixel and I'm basically waiting for next year when we stop getting security updates.

I think that point was reached about 4-5 years ago which is why I don't understand the prices of these phones. They offer literally nothing over a $200-$300 phone. Nothing. Diminishing returns? More like no returns and just a waste of money. Apple is a fashion brand nowadays and Google is trying to become one too. No thanks.

If you're not using iPhones, I think so. Apple is the only one adding features worth upgrading for, maybe not every year, but definitely at least every other year.

What features were "worth upgrading for" for you?

Yes. iPhone 6s is what I’m sticking with until they double the battery life (in real use, not watching a video) or do something else I might actually care about.

I upgraded from the iPhone 6 Plus to the iPhone XS Max, on a complete whim. The biggest difference is of course, snappiness of applications. The OS, not so much, because I think Apple does a good job at maintaining iOS. But Spotify used to take 8 seconds to cold boot for me on my 6 Plus, and sub-second on the XS Max.

I would love to see hardware upgrades halt for five years while we all (collectively) get our software shit together and optimize everything for performance. That'll never happen, because I think it's in our human nature to Get Things Done in the short-term with compromises that affect the long-term.

Poor software performance is our digital world's global warming.

Worth remembering that CPU is throttled to battery health over time, so you’d want to compare your 6 as it was on day one. Not to say that your new phone isn’t faster, but your Spotify example is exactly my experience just getting a new battery for my iPhone 6 two months ago.

The reason I am happy with the 6s is that there's a big difference in speed from the 6 and earlier hardware. It's probably not quite as snappy as newer models, yes, but lag in moving around is something that I can't stand - and I find the 6s doesn't annoy me.

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